The much-anticipated third Google for Nigeria event was held today and Google announced some amazing new products and features some of which are dedicated to the Nigerian market.
The announcements include navigation instructions in a Nigerian voice for both motorcycle and danfo navigation modes, new Street View imagery, Gallery Go, Google Go updates, Google Lens and Bolo, and a Nigerian culinary experience from Google Arts and Culture.
In the same vein, the tech giant unveiled plans to make an online safety curriculum available to all primary and secondary school students in the country, reaching an estimated 56 million Nigerian students every year. This will be in partnership with the Nigerian government.
Below is a highlight of each of the new products and features…
Bolo
Bolo is a speech-based reading app that helps kids learn how to read in English. It encourages them to read out loud and then provides individual, customised feedback to help improve their reading capabilities. Bolo was launched Bolo in India earlier this year and today, it has now been launched in Nigeria and Ghana.
Gallery Go
This is a fast and smart photo gallery designed for users who don’t have a reliable internet connection. Gallery Go brings many of the best features of Google Photos on the device, to help them find, edit and manage their photos even when they are offline. The app is only 10MB to keep the phone light and fast so that you can spend more time capturing memories.
Google Lens
Google Lens helps people to find out more about the world around them through their camera and photos. That’s why Google has launched Lens inside Google Go, to help people read, translate, and search the words they see simply by using their camera. Users can open Lens, point it at a sign, and listen to the words read out loud. If they don’t speak the language, they can translate it into their own. Today, Google is also launching support for Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.
Google Arts & Culture has introduced ‘Come Chop Bellefull: A Taste of Nigeria’, which explores Nigeria’s diverse food culture.
People across the world can now explore Nigerian regional cooking and culture through 2,000 high-resolution images and 30 stories created in collaboration with The Centenary Project at the Pan-Atlantic University.
Supporting Nigerian musicians on YouTube
Today YouTube announced a commitment to support emerging talent in Nigeria. In the initial phase, YouTube is teaming up with Nigerian music star, Mr. Eazi and the emPawa initiative to support 10 emerging Nigerian music artists to build their craft, increase their fanbase and connect with the world through YouTube.
Motorcycle/danfo navigation modes and Street View on Google Maps helps you navigate, explore and get things done. Nigeria has over 10 million motorcycles and we all know that they move differently from cars. We’re introducing a dedicated travel mode to provide directions and navigation for motorcycles in Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana, Rwanda, Togo, and Uganda. We’re also launching navigation instructions in a Nigerian voice for both motorcycle and car driving modes so that local names and places get pronounced as they should be.
Traveling through Lagos, one of Africa’s busiest cities is often a challenge with unpredictable factors that affect journey times. In the next few months, we’ll introduce a new directions experience for Lagos optimized for informal transit, bringing Danfo routes into Google Maps.
To help make it easier to explore places in Nigeria, we’re publishing more panoramic imagery on Street View. We started with imagery of Lagos two years ago, and now there’s the imagery of Abuja, Benin City, Enugu and Ibadan with almost 12 thousand kilometers of roads added.
Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Director, Google Nigeria said: “Every day, people in Nigeria, Africa and around the world turn to Google for help. We hope that the products and updates we’re announcing today will make Google even more helpful for finding things out and getting things done. We remain committed to bringing the transformational power of technology to people everywhere.”
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